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The Silver Bullet Band
The Silver Bullet Band was an eight-person team that was put together from audience members for a one-night only performance at UCB's Cage Match on April 7, 2005. Despite being mostly made up of good improvisers, the Silver Bullet Band performed a spectacularly awful, booze-fueled show that devolved into a clusterfuck of tremendous magnitude. Team Members Eric Appel, Mo Fathelbab, Chris Gethard, Curtis Gwinn, Shannon O'Neill, Jaime Skinner, Josh Sturgis, and the mysterious Lugo In theory, this line up should have been a powerhouse. Gwinn, Gethard, and O'Neill were all members of the Joe Ross Tribe together. Gethard and O'Neill were long time members of Optimist International, regarded as one of the best teams of their era. O'Neill and Appel were teammates on Mailer Daemon, probably the best team in existence at the time. Furthermore, Fathelbab, Skinner, and Sturgis were amongst the most experienced students at the theater. The only wildcard... was LUGO. Auspicious Beginnings For one reason or another (the scheduled team dropping out?), a challenger was needed to go up against Krompf in that week's Cage Match. Eight improvisers were picked at random from the crowd. They were assigned the name "Silver Bullet Band" in honor of Cage Match co-host Eric Scott's love of Bob Seger. Why It Was So Awful Many onlookers assign blame to a man named Lugo, the only team member unknown to the general improv community. Visibly drunk, he would not only deny his fellow performers but at times became verbally and physically abusive towards them. To be fair, though, it appeared as though some other members of the team were at least tipsy. As the show continued, a general air of hopelessness seemed to settle over the team. Every sincere attempt at good scenework was met with a denial and there were walk-ons aplenty, many by Lugo. After the Silver Bullet Band's performance, much internet research was done to find out more about Lugo. The only evidence of his existence uncovered was a strange photograph of him wearing goggles and a swimming cap.http://farm1.static.flickr.com/198/501090855_d74819d561_o.jpg The Crowd Turns As the team broke down, the crowd became bloodthirsty. Leading the charge was (an absolutely intoxicated) John Reynolds, whose laugh would reverberate through the theatre before he would shout the observation "MELTDOWN!" or the suggestion "TOUCH THE CLOCK!" (suggesting that the team intentionally break the rules and take the automatic loss to spare the audience more of the same). Several times a chant of "Lu-go! Lu-go!" would begin when Lugo would yet again walk into someone else's scene. The End Result At the end of the show an abashed Chris Gethard made an impassioned plea for the audience to vote for the other team. For the most part they did, and Kromph won 48 to 6. Who those 6 are, no one knows, although it was actually 5 people. One person voted for The Silver Bullet Band twice. A definitely drunk Curtis Gwinn was standing at the bar earnestly predicting a big win for The Silver Bullet Band when the result was announced. "What? I can't believe it! Our show was DEFINITELY better!" "I remember Jaime being incredibly frustrated and Gethard looking incredibly pained. Curtis seemed to be having a blast." http://www.improvresourcecenter.com/mb/showpost.php?p=731958&postcount=163 Chris Gethard recalls the show as being one of the top five most humiliating experiences of his entire life. It first and foremost shamed him individually. Furthermore, it did so in front of a community that he respected and that respected him. The show betrayed every ideal he held both as a man and an improviser. Gethard has shit his pants over one dozen times in the past ten years. He considers this Cage Match performance as more humiliating than all of those incidents combined. Legacy The Silver Bullet Band is lovingly referenced today by those who saw it as a good example of how not to perform longform improv. To this day, Kirk Damato regrets not attending this Cagematch, and whenever mention of the Silver Bullet Band comes up, he will invariably lament, "I can't believe I missed this show." The Golden Bullet Band, another team formed from audience members for a 2007 Cage Match, was named as a tribute to The Silver Bullet Band. The Golden Bullet Band apparently did much better than its predecessor. Shannon O'Neill wore a skirt for this show. Category:Improv Groups Category:New York City